Through His Eyes

Bob Lerner was still a wide-eyed kid when he discovered the mystery of looking at things through the viewfinder of his father's balky old camera.

He wasn't much older when his dad -- a mediocre photographer but an outgoing man -- introduced his picture-crazy son to legendary photojournalist Frank Scherschel.

More than six decades later, Lerner -- who now lives in Yorktown -- still remembers the excitement of meeting the talented shooter who would become his mentor. He "went bananas," he says, at the sight of Scherschel's beautifully executed photographs. And he peered through his top-of-the- line cameras in wonder.

Many more memories well up as the 77-year-old Lerner walks through the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, where some 130 examples of his work have been hung in a massive and often compelling retrospective exhibit.

But time and time again, as he relives the shots from a lifetime lived largely behind the lens, he wanders back to his beginnings. Not even the passage of so many years -- or the taking of thousands upon thousands of photographs -- has dulled the charm of exploring the world through a camera.

"I was only 10," he says, "but I was absolutely fascinated with the magic of pointing a camera.

"The first look through the viewfinder -- and I was hooked."

Lerner's boyish enthusiasm -- stoked by the encouragement of his father and mentor -- helped fuel an unusually precocious talent.

Among the earliest pictures in "A Lens to the World: Photographs by Bob Lerner," which opens at the Chrysler tonight, is a portrait of a Boy Scout camp-out in the north woods of Wisconsin. The deceptively simple photograph shows three young men gathered around a smoky fire as a spectacular, early morning light filters through the surrounding trees.

"This is the first good picture I made," Lerner says, studying the black-and-white image.

"I still think a lot of it, and I took it when I was 14."

Only a year later, Lerner captured another shot that demonstrates his early mastery of light and composition.

Urged on by his father, he regularly roamed the neighborhoods of Milwaukee by streetcar, often stopping to take pictures of scenes that escaped other people's notice.

"Early Snow" is a moody image that uses the high-intensity glow of a distant streetlight to transform the appearance of a two-story house, a picket fence and a barren line of trees during a nocturnal snowfall. Couched within this mysterious, almost foreboding scene are two upper-story windows that beam with a softer light, lending an evocative human presence to an otherwise stark portrait of winter.

"One of the things that Scherschel taught me was that -- if you find it interesting, it's worth photographing," Lerner says.

"I don't care if it's a basket of apples or the president of the United States."

Scherschel, a well-known LIFE magazine photographer whose assignments included covering D-Day, wasn't the only adviser to influence the rapidly developing Lerner.

In addition to his regular streetcar shoots, the teenage boy frequently rode along with the staff of the Milwaukee Journal -- which then boasted one of the premier photography departments in the country.

Such exposure provided an uncommon insight into the life of a photojournalist, he says. Yet, while some of what he learned about the hours and pay instilled a sense of caution, he also began to believe that taking pictures was something he could do well.

"I burned my fingers on a lot of light bulbs with those guys -- and I got them a lot of coffee," he says. "But I was able to start at the top instead of the bottom.

"I was always around competent if not excellent photographers. So the standard was very high from the beginning."

Indeed, Lerner had not yet held his first full-time job when he went off to World War II at the age of 18.

Not until his return two years later did Scherschel help him land a position with a former Chicago Tribune photographer who had just opened his own commercial studio.

Francis Hugh Byrne had a great resume, Lerner says, including noteworthy coverage of numerous Mafia funerals and the infamous Valentine's Day Massacre. He also had the smarts to locate his business above a prominent Italian restaurant that was frequented by some of Chicago's best photographers and writers.

For four years, Lerner worked as a lab technician, photographer and manager upstairs, then came down to take the most junior seat at the restaurant's liveliest table. Soaking in stories, advice and encouragement from numerous LIFE magazine photographers -- plus such well-known writers as Pierre Salinger and Studs Turkel -- he decided to start saving money, hoping to return to Europe and hone his photography skills.

Traveling to Paris with his wife in 1951, Lerner spent nearly a year taking pictures, including a series of arresting images that opens the Chrysler's exhibition.